Steves Sunday Selection 9 January 2011

Here are some of my favorite articles from the last week from around the web. It shows quite a strong start to 2011. There are only a few links this week, but a lot of them are involved, so lets get going…

“What’s the ROI of your﻿ mother?” That is just one of the awesome quotes from Gary Vaynerchuck in this awesome 45 minute video. I am generally not a fan of watching videos, I would rather read, but once they get through the obligatory intro, Gary was on fire and, as usual, a mixture between sage wisdom and absolute energetic comedy. Since this is a series of Q and A questions to say what Gary talks about the only answer is….everything.

You can also find this video, as well as a lot of other GaryV stuff here.

I think I was sold on this article by Pamela within the first mention of the tweet about Frida Kahlo : “If I were Frida Kahlo, I would have painted myself without a unibrow. Or at least have become aware I needed a pair of tweezers.” The rest of her article was just as impressive. Defying convention, taking a stand, being honest, being memorable and having a style that is your own are all essential things that a blogger should have in their tool bag. Everyone will not like you and your style but if you’re open and honest there are many people that will enjoy what you have to write.

I have done Video Marketing before. Quite a lot of video marketing in fact. But it has been a long while (years) since I have done any on a significant scale. One of the things I will be doing is more video marketing. I am sure I will be talking about VM more in the months to come. Here is a great article about optimizing YouTube videos from djfunkyslick. Video Marketing is a powerful tool. Every marketer should start to think about getting involved in this area, at least to diversify.

There are not many areas of making money online that I would say simply that I have absolutely no idea about what it entails to be successful. Domain Investing is one of those area.’s. I have always found the idea fascinating but I have next to no practical experience in this area. Thankfully DiTesco knows a lot and gives a wonderful breakdown of domain investing.

I will admit, I knew I had to read this article when I saw the title in my feedburner, “Emotions are like Poop.” As it turns out it was a really good article too. Steven talks about the importance of channeling, not controlling emotions and how to express them in healthy ways.

Alex shows us the importance of asking others to help to make your blog stand out and be noticed. There are many ways to ask for help, some direct and some indirect. Alex gives us some examples of the ingenious ways many bloggers use to get others to help them on the road to success.

I love value. Mark provides some great value here. A free 30 page PDF on Branding that includes interviews and articles by some of the bloggers that are simple THE BEST at building personal brands. If you have any interest at all in building a personal brand (and why wouldn’t you) this is an incredible value and a must read. Includes articles from: Mars Dorian, Tim Tyrell-Smith, Jeffrey Baril, and Dave Sabol.

I have been using Easyfill for about 3-4 months now, and just have never talked about this small but nice program. It saves maybe 5 seconds per post comment X 20 posts X 120 days, even with my notoriously poor math skills that adds up to over 3 hours saved since I started using it. Thankfully I do not have to go further into an explanation of this Firefox plugin, because Kim gives a thorough explanation of everything you could possibly need to know about it.

Tristan is always good for some valuable articles. This is a great one. If you ever guest post, or are thinking of guest posting in the future, this is an article that you simply should not miss. In this article Tristan shows off the 4 ways to show off your guest post, thereby maximizing the effort on what should be one of your “best” posts.

Finally Brankica points out a “Human Spammer”. Guess what, I had been burned on the same two posts she talks about from this guy. This is definitely an article worth checking out. As informational as the article is, the “updates” with his replies to her is the true height of comedy. I was laughing hysterically when reading them. I love unintentional comedy!

Informative Sunday post as usual and all new information is even more magnetic. It has lots of new referral, I will have to read the rest later as I want to. Besides, I know about the blog incident about the spammer. I think GAP plug in works the best. I was having lots of spamming problems too. But I am hoping I will over come it today, by adding this plug in like most of us.
Enjoy your Sunday.

The funny thing with THIS spammer is that being a cut and paster they would get thru the spam filters. Particularly GASP. He was clever enough to target articles where there lists and by saying “i liked #2 and #4 the best” made it concievable that he had read the article.

i do like to give the benefit of the doubt to people. If he had been open and honest and had a “oops I got caught” I would have still spam binned the old comments when I found out, but At least I would admire his creativity. As it stands though his responses make him seem worse (and funnier) than the original piece.

Lol, Steve, thank you so much for including me here and I am so glad you had a laugh.
I sometimes say “I don’t know if I should cry or laugh” to situation like that one.

The thing that I love the most about that post is that it brought so many people together.

I will be checking the links to the posts I haven’t read so far (I just love these lists cause like Kikolani and NittyGriddy, you do the hard work for the rest of us). I will make sure to watch the video, since I am also like you, don’t really like watching them especially if they are long. So if you say it was really good I will take your word on it and see it 🙂

Thanks!

“nice collections you have here i like2nd and 4th go ahead retweeted” lol

The more I think about that guy the more I chuckle. If it weren’t for his crazy insistence that he did nothing wrong I might have come to respect his creativity a little bit (wouldn’t have stopped me from spam binning…but wouldn’t “bug” me).

I keep chuckling when I think about his replies though. They really were hysterical…in the unintentional manner.

We move in the same blogging circles it seems. I agree that these posts are worth reading. I love Alex’s writing and of course being a fellow Aussie I appreciate his humour 😉 He even gets a mention in an interview I have done for a post tonight (Mon Perth time). He’ll get a surprise cos I’ve not told him about it lol

Like you, I would rather read than watch videos, but your recommendation is enough for me to maybe make an exception…..after I get through reading some more posts 🙂

I think those of us who prefer reading to videos are becoming fewer and fewer. I do think this is unfortunate because I really love reading. That being said I also do like to watch Gary V. he can be pretty funny at the same time he really knows what he is talking about. I guess the best way to watch some video is to put it on, listen to the audio and do other things. Then they can be worthwhile.

The human spammer post pulled me right in. More silly competitive marketing practices. Silly, and totally counterproductive. First off, nobody was clicking on that link anyway. Secondly, the guy got exposed. Nothing worse than being put on blast by a respected blogger with a huge following.

I will definitely keep an eye out for those types of comments if Aksimet doesn’t catch them.

As for Gary Vee, he’s just Gary Vee. Not sure if anyone on earth brings quite the level of energy that GV does. As you note he mixes insane humor with real wisdom. It’s a Molotav Cocktail of value.

Yeah I agree, the problem with the black hat methods is that they do work for a while. Unfortunately when they fall apart ( which they ultimately always do) they ruin your reputation far more whatever vantage they temporarily gave you. It is far better just to stay with accepted and normal practices.

I am sure with the volume of links that guy got enjoyed some good organic traffic for a bit. But as people like me find out about it would rescind those links and now his name is, “mud”. whatever small advantage he got has been lost by the smack his reputation has received.

It certainly makes it easier to comment when all your info is installed with one easy click. It makes a lot less annoying. I certainly don’t go to Kim’s website enough. You’re right it was chock-full of good stuff.

Hi there. Thanks a lot for the mention. I hope that article about Domain Investing helped you understand a “tad” more about the industry.

You got some good articles mentioned here too, and I like particularly the tips to optimize YouTube videos. I have made some videos (very little) as this is outside my comfort zone and articles like this gives me that extra “vitamin” to get it done. Thanks for sharing

Video marketing is not necessarily in my, “wheelhouse” but I’ve had a lot of success with it my niche marketing before and I have a feeling that with the growing amount of mobile apps it will become a larger and larger important source of traffic, viewers and customers so to something that many bloggers should think seriously about dabbling in.

Steve,
I always find value in your Sunday recommendations but this week I’m especially appreciative of the post on optimizing Youtube. I just made my first two videos and plan to do more. So long as I am plowing ahead, it is great to have a little guidance to keep those furrows straight. It’s not so easy to do when you are learning something new.

Videos are a great way to go! I firmly believe they are going to be a huge traffic boon come 2011. I just have to get my butt in gear and start working on videos again, myself. Congrats on your first two vids and keep it up! 🙂

I too am not a big fan of video, but a lot of folks are. I guess that’s why the internet is a democracy, it gives folks choices. Anyhow, some seriously great resources here, but I’ve not read ANY of them. Easyfill certainly sounds like a good plugin, will check that out.

I don’t know why, but I’ve not downloaded Mark’s PDF yet. Off to remedy that now.

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